Amy Speier, Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Department of
Sociology and Anthropology, College of Liberal Arts

Service Learning Course(s):

• TBD

“I think it is great for students to make these high-level like connections in the classroom and then actually to do something in the community to make those larger connections."

Dr. Amy Speier is a cultural anthropologist and medical anthropologist lecturer who has been at UTA since 2012. She has successfully incorporated service learning into her medical anthropology and food and culture courses. Amy learned about service learning at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida and has been utilizing it with her students ever since. She says that one of the core values of anthropology is social responsibility, and service learning plays a huge role.

Dr. Speier offers her students a choice of a group project or an individualized service-learning project in her courses. In her experience, adding service learning to classes gave her a whole new perspective because it is a completely unique way of imagining the classroom and helps students thrive by gaining important life skills.

Dr. Speier recommends all faculty members add service learning to their courses. For faculty who are hesitant, she advises them to contact other faculty members who have used service learning, assess a variety of ways of implementing it, learn the impact it will have on the students, and to start small.